A Helpful Overview Of All Your Digital Property And Digital Assets

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Digital property (or digital assets) can be understood as any information about you or created by you that exists in digital form, either online or on an electronic storage device, including the information necessary to access the digital asset. All of your digital property comprises what is known as your digital estate.

What Is Digital Property?

For the purposes of digital estate planning, digital property can be broken down into three main categories:

Any information or data that is stored electronically, whether stored online, in the cloud, or on a physical device

Any online accounts, such as email and communications accounts, social media accounts, shopping accounts, photo and video sharing accounts, video gaming accounts, online storage accounts, and websites and blogs that you may manage

Domain names

Intellectual property, including copyrighted materials, trademarks, and any code you may have written and own

Hardware And Their Contents

There are many different kinds of hardware that qualify as digital property, primarily because they contain digital information about you or that you created. Also, the hardware itself, even without the data it contains, may have monetary value.

Digital music player, including any music, playlists, or data on the device

Digital cameras, including any photos or videos on the device

E-reader, including any books or files on the device

External hard drives and flash drives, and any content on the device

Electronically Stored Information And Data

Any information that you store electronically—from photos and videos, to text messages and emails, to medical records and legal documents—is your digital property. This can include information and data that you store on a physical device (such as a computer, a flash drive, or a phone) or that you store electronically (in the cloud).

Online Accounts

Any online accounts you have will necessarily contain lots of personal information about you. In addition, the information necessary to access those accounts is considered your digital property.

Email, including any correspondences and in-email chats

Other online communication tools, such as Skype, FaceTime, and IM or iChat or WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, and any data or conversations stored on those programs

Social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and others, and any content (writing, photos, and videos, for example) that you've posted to those sites, and any correspondences you've had through those sites

Shopping accounts, including any personal information you've stored in your account (your credit card information, your address, etc.), your purchase history, and any credit you may have with the company

Photo and video sharing accounts, such as Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Instagram, and YouTube, including the photos and video content, any personal data in the account settings, and any interactions you had through the accounts (commenting, liking, etc.)

Video gaming accounts, and any in-game or in-app purchases, account information, avatars and game history, and any in-game assets you've acquired

Online storage accounts, including the data and information stored

Websites and blogs, including any writing or content you've created for the site or blog, any history of interactions with the site's readers or users, and any income you may have generated from the site

Loyalty programs (credit card, airline, car rental, hotel, etc.) and any benefits that may have accrued over time

Domain Names

Many people own domain names, whether as an investment strategy or for sites that are live. In any case, if you own any domain names those count as your digital property, and will likely have some monetary value.

Intellectual Property

Any digital intellectual property that you've protected counts as your digital property, whether there are physical elements to the property or not. In addition, many types of digital intellectual property may have some monetary value.